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October 2006
Red meat, and the meaning of the phrase, “Sock it to me”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sixty-one years ago, Helen and Joe Martin of Atlanta named their second-born son James Francis.
But as is often the case in politics and fraternities, Republican Casey Cagle has decided that his Democratic rival needs a nickname. By Nov. 7, Martin will be known as “Liberal Jim.”
As if you didn’t see that coming.
Cagle put out an attack ad this afternoon. He doesn’t quite accuse Martin of crimes against humanity, but comes close.
Says the ad: “Liberal Jim Martin fought to keep Boy Scouts and prayer out of our schools, but voted against making it a felony to sell drugs near them.”
Asked for a response, Will Martin, the Martin campaign spokesman and Eagle Scout, answered thusly: “Casey Cagle is trying to change the subject. He doesn’t want to defend his own record of fighting for powerful interests.”
Which means it’s left to us to explain exactly what’s going on.
The big question for Republicans next Tuesday - perhaps the only question - is turnout. Will the base show up? We talked about that with Cagle last week. This is what he said:
“The reality is, this is still a two-party state. And with a third party candidate, you have the dynamics that you could potentially be in a run-off. So we’re working very, very hard to the finish line to ensure that we don’t have a run-off.
“No one knows what the turnout is going to be. The truth is, with everything going on in Washington, we’ve been fairly insulated from it - but it doesn’t mean we’re going to have huge turnouts. There’s not an overriding, huge reason for people to go to the polls in mass numbers. We’re working very hard to get our base turned out.”
That’s what his ad is about.
Now on to another topic that can only be understood by people of alive during the primitive age before cable TV.
Three days ago, the trio of candidates for lieutenant governor participated in statewide debate on GPTV. Jim Martin said Republicans had reformed the state’s Medicaid system into a crisis.
Now, to get the joke, you first have to admit that Cagle - with no ideological slight intended here - resembles a young Richard Nixon. Lean body, narrow nose, five o’clock shadow, the receding hairline.
This was Cagle’s reply: “Are there problems? Sure. Are the problems going to be corrected? You can bet your bippy.”
It was an LSD flashback. Goldie Hawn in a bikini and fake tattoos magically appeared. Shades of “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.”
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Now speaks the sister, and she’s still mad
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Carol Hunstein campaign, reacting to rival Mike Wiggin’s demand that TV stations stop running her attack ad, has produced a statement from the unnamed sister’s lawyer, Todd McLeroy of Cullman, Alabama.
It’s one more wrinkle in the race for state Supreme Court justice. We offer below some quick excerpts:
“Mike Wiggins’ sister is a life long resident of Cullman. She is a respected citizen, homemaker, wife, mother of three, and member of the board of a Christian school.
“The litigation with her only brother was perhaps the most difficult and painful period of her life. She does not want to relive any part of that time by becoming involved in her brother’s campaign for a position on the Georgia Supreme Court.
“However, she has authorized me to state that the affidavit she filed in February 1999 is true, and she stands by what she said then.”
Among other points by the lawyer, according to the Hunstein campaign:
“Mr. Wiggins was not close to his mother. When she had her stroke, Mr. Wiggins had not had much contact with her for some time. His sister was the primary care giver.
“Mr. Wiggins removed all of the money in her mother’s bank account after she went into a coma. His sister, as a result, could not pay her mother’s bills. Mr. Wiggins’ sister was forced to establish a guardianship and borrow money against her mother’s house to pay for her care.
“After learning about the mortgage, Mr. Wiggins’ started a court fight in which he went through four sets of lawyers and litigated in many different courts.
“Eventually, there was a settlement in which the sister agreed to allow him to become their mother’s guardian. There was no “victoryâ€? for Mr. Wiggins. His sister simply gave in, deciding she did not want to fight with her brother about her mother’s money. A key part of the settlement was a court order preventing Mr. Wiggins from ever contacting her again.
“After he became guardian, Mr. Wiggins asked the court to put his sister in jail because she had not returned their mother’s family photographs, a few personal items, and a few pieces of inexpensive furniture. She had kept the items because of her fear Mr. Wiggins would burn them. After a court hearing, the judge refused to jail Mr. Wiggins’ sister.
“After their mother died, Mr. Wiggins’ sister learned that he had changed the beneficiary on an insurance policy that their mother had maintained on her life from his sister, who had been the beneficiary for about 15 years, to Mrs. Wiggins sister. Mr. Wiggins used the money to pay his lawyers. While his sister tried to challenge what he had done, she eventually gave in to avoid having to deal with him.
“During the course of the litigation, Mr. Wiggins did not display the temperament expected in a judge and had difficulties dealing with all the other professionals in the case, including opposing counsel and the lawyers who were appointed by the court to serve as his mother’s guardians at litem.”
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It gets even hotter: Wiggins tells TV stations to pull the Hunstein attack ad, or else
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mike Wiggins’ campaign has sent a letter to TV stations airing the attack ad by incumbent state Supreme Court Justice Carol Hunstein, demanding that they yank the 30-second spot. Failure to do so could result in a loss of licenses, the campaign’s manager warns.
An informed reader has already called in to say that TV stations can’t be held liable for the content of candidate ads. We’ll let you lawyers in the crowd tell us whether that’s so.
Here’s the letter:
“I am writing on behalf of the Mike Wiggins for Georgia Supreme Court campaign in regard to an advertisement by Carol Hunstein regarding Mr. Wiggins and his family.
“The Atlanta newspaper called the advertisement “the most brutal ad Georgia’s ever seen.â€? The text of the advertisement is attached.
“This advertisement is false and misleading. For the sake of both FCC licensing requirements and the public interest, your station should immediately cease airing this advertisement.
“The Hunstein advertisement claims Mr. Wiggins’s sister ‘said he threatened to kill her while she was 8 months pregnant.’ That statement is patently false and misleading, particularly to the extent that it suggests that Wiggins was subject to a restraining order, which he was not.
“Mr. Wiggins never threatened his sister, and any charge that he did is utterly false. Indeed, the false statement was made solely to avoid having her deposition taken. Mr. Wiggins did file a motion in a guardianship case to prevent the removal of life sustaining care from his Mother while she was in a coma.
“Years earlier, at his Mother’s request, Mr. Wiggins made a promise to her that he would protect her life and her life savings. The Order entered by the Court, which merely implemented a settlement agreement between the parties, completely vindicated Mr. Wiggins’s position in the case.
“It plainly was not an order by a judge who believed that a threat had been made by Mr. Wiggins and the ad is incomplete as it suggests that it was ordering Mr. Wiggins alone not to have contact. Indeed, the full paragraph indicates that it was a mutual decision on both sides.
“In fact, not only did the order give him sole control over his mother’s finances and health care, it also ordered that his sister return personal property to the estate and to repay over $12,000 to the estate.
“You have a duty under Federal Communications Commission regulations ‘to protect the public from false, misleading or deceptive advertising.’ Licensee Responsibility With Respect to the Broadcast of False, Misleading or Deceptive Advertising, 74 F.C.C. 2d 623 (1961).
“Failure to prevent the airing of ‘false and misleading advertising’ may be ‘probative of an underlying abdication of licensee responsibility’ that can be cause of the loss of a station’s license. Cosmopolitan Broad. Corp. v. FCC, 581 F.2d 917, 927 (D.C. Cir. 1978).
“The Hunstein campaign advertisement is false, misleading and deceptive. We demand that you refuse to continue to air this advertisement. If this advertisement continues to air, we may pursue any and all legal avenues available to us.
“We can be reached at (404) 233-7775 if you have any questions regarding this letter. Please contact me to inform me of your decision. And, please know we appreciate your attention to this matter.
“Sincerely,
“R.J. Briscione
“Campaign Manager
“Mike Wiggins for Georgia Supreme Court”
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Carol Hunstein, meet Bernie Marcus
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This race for state Supreme Court justice gets more and more interesting.
Earlier today, we told you that the state Republican party — given the go-ahead by Gov. Sonny Perdue — is backing challenger Mike Wiggins with more than $1 million.
Wiggins’ opponent is incumbent Justice Carol Hunstein, who has collected endorsements from some of the most powerful Republican lawyers in the state.
Now comes word that the Safety and Prosperity Coalition, the 527ish group backing Wiggins, has filed its campaign disclosure report.
The group has raised $1.6 million. Of that, $1.3 million came in October from something called American Justice Partnership, a Washington organization that describes itself as “a national non-profit coalition of leading corporations, think tanks, foundations, trade associations, individuals and organizations advocating for legal reform at the state level.�
American Justice Partnership has been active in judicial races in New York, Oregon and Illinois as well.
And who might be one of the founders of American Justice Partnership? That would be Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Atlanta-based Home Depot, the world’s largest home-improvement retailer. This according to the Washington Post.
Here’s the disclosure from the Safety and Prosperity Coalition.
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Mary’s out, Zell’s in: Miller dishes out the warm and fuzzy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue is up with a TV ad that looks to be his closer for the ‘06 election. It’s a warm-and-fuzzy narrated by his new best friend and predecessor, Zell Miller, the ostensible Democrat.
See it here and talk amongst yourselves.
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Away all boats: But support for Wiggins could put Perdue on a lee shore
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s amazing the things that a governor with a double-digit lead in the polls can find to do, only days before an election.
A man under pressure might have spent the weekend stuffing envelopes.
On Saturday, Gov. Sonny Perdue paid a sobering visit to the Georgia-Florida game, which we now must refer to as the world’s largest temperance society gathering. On Sunday, it was a visit to the Atlanta Motor Speedway. Oh, the stress.
By his actions, Perdue has declared that he has political capital to spare. And has made clear how he intends to cash it in this week.
With appearances at presidential rallies for two Republican congressional candidates, and his participation in a statewide caravan of GOP candidates for constitutional offices - agriculture commissioner, secretary of state and the like - Perdue has decided he’ll be the tide to lift all boats on Nov. 7.
None of this spending spree is risky, save for one item on the Sonny-do list: the governor’s now-obvious support of Mike Wiggins, the non-partisan candidate for the state Supreme Court.
Wiggins’ opponent, incumbent Justice Carol Hunstein, cut loose late last week with a ferocious 30-second TV spot that said Wiggins had been sued by his own mother, and that his sister had accused him of threatening her life.
Over the weekend, Wiggins supporters — lawsuit-fearing business types and those with strong ties to the GOP’s Christian conservative base — came out in defense of their man. He’s been wrongfully cast as the villain, they say, in an ugly family drama.
We wondered why Hunstein had engaged in such a drastic, pre-emptive strike. And were told that it was because, in large part, the justice’s strategists had picked up word that the state GOP — with Perdue’s permission — was ready to wade into the contest on Wiggins’ behalf.
The state Republican party has committed more than $1 million to Wiggins’ election, we’re told, through TV ads and at least two statewide mailings. One flyer is over Perdue’s name. Another includes the name of state GOP chairman Alec Poitevint.
If we’re a little fuzzy on the cash amount, it’s because state GOP officials have declined to volunteer the details.
Look for the governor’s investment in Wiggins to create seismic disturbances within Republican ranks, especially between lawyerly and business interests in the state party.
Hunstein, you see, is backed by GOP hero Zell Miller, who as governor first appointed her to the high-court bench 14 years ago. And by Michael Bowers, the former GOP gubernatorial candidate, who is now chairman of the committee that screens judicial nominations for Perdue. And by Oscar Persons, the Atlanta attorney and former counsel for the state GOP.
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And in church pews, Georgia Christian Alliance debuts
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This weekend, the group formerly known as the Christian Coalition of Georgia, led by Sadie Fields, put out 650,000 copies of its traditional election-year voter guide. Her group is now called the Georgia Christian Alliance.
You can find Fields’ voter guides here. Note that Democrats pretty much declined to play. Libertarians didn’t do well, either.
Even for those not on her side, Fields’ voter guides are always worth checking out - simply to see what’s next on the legislative agenda for Christian conservative forces, who form the Republican base.
For instance, candidates for state agriculture commission, and for two seats on the state Public Service Commission were asked to declare their position on the following: “Abortion coverage and/or prescriptions used to induce abortions included in Georgia state employee health care plans.”
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Somebody ask Sanford Bishop why he’s smiling
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At a candidate forum hosted by the Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce late last week, one of the most sanguine men in attendance at the early, early morning meeting was U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop.
The Democratic congressman, who represents much of southwest Georgia, doesn’t seem that worried by his Republican opponent, pastor Brad Hughes of Blakely. Then there’s the fact that, if Democrats take control of the U.S. House in eight days, Bishop is in line to become the most influential House member in Georgia.
He’s not the most senior Democrat in the Georgia delegation. That honor goes to U.S. Rep. John Lewis. But it is more blessed to give than to receive.
Lewis is on the House Ways and Means Committee, in charge of taxation. Bishop is on the House Appropriations Committee, which has much control over the disbursement of billions - nay, trillions - of dollars.
Bishop says he’s shooting for chairmanship of a subcommittee, preferably the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense spending. The subcommittee is in charge of big ticket items, big spending, and has major clout.
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The Wiggins response: He wasn’t fighting with Mom, but for her
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Both Lynn Westmoreland, the congressman from Coweta County, and Sadie Fields, leader of the Georgia Christian Alliance, came out in defense of Mike Wiggins on Saturday, in response to that ferocious 30-second TV spot by Carol Hunstein.
Wiggins also went up on Friday with a TV response. No doubt you’ve already seen it — you could hardly miss it in metro Atlanta over the weekend. But if you haven’t caught it, check it out here.
Note that the Wiggins campaign chose to refute the general tone, rather than the specifics of the Hunstein ad.
The campaign didn’t deny that Wiggins had been sued by his mother, or that his sister expressed some unsibling-like — or maybe, ubersibling-like — feelings for her brother. Rather, the ad explains that the whole situation had roots in a family fight while Wiggins’ mom was in a coma.
The ad speaks of recovering stolen money, but Wiggins’ sister isn’t directly accused. The question of how Wiggins’ mom came to sue her son is not addressed, so far as we can tell.
The Hunstein ad can be seen a few items below.
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A race with more geography than most
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There’s a new twist in the story of that poll commissioned by an anti-immigration group which appeared to have surveyed the old 8th Congressional District rather than the one Rep. Jim Marshall and former Rep. Mac Collins are running in. Steve Camarota with the Center for Immigration Studies left us a phone message late Friday in which he said the poll, which showed Collins up a point over Marshall, was “100 percent correct.�
Camarota said he was told by the Polling Company, which conducted the survey, that only a footnote which listed the counties in the old 8th District was wrong.
“They assure me it is the right 8th District,� Camarota said.
We’ll find out soon.
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Cagle’s response: Jim Martin’s a liberal, but “not a bad man”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Casey Cagle, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, now has an ad up responding to the shot that Democratic rival Jim Martin took at him on the predatory lending issue.
See it here.
“Jim Martin is falsely attacking Casey Cagle to hide his liberal record,” the narrator intones. Martin’s alleged misdeeds include voting for a 25 percent increase in the sales tax “on everyone and everything, including the food on your table.”
But you can tell that Cagle, after his race against Ralph Reed, wants to avoid enhancing a reputation for going after the jugular. Says Cagle, to close the ad: “Jim Martin’s not a bad man. But his false attacks and liberal policies are bad for Georgia.”
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It depends what you mean by “8th District”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rep. Jim Marshall’s campaign has released a poll that shows the incumbent Democrat up 16 points over Republican challenger Mac Collins, and at the magic 50 percent mark.
Marshall spokesman Doug Moore said the campaign has been guarded about its polling information, but wanted to debunk a poll conducted for a group called the Center for Immigration Studies, which had Collins ahead by a point in the 8th District Congressional race.
That poll, which was conducted in 14 congressional districts earlier this month, asked voters around the country a lot of questions about immigration policy, as well as who they were voting for. But Democratic state chairman and Peach Pundit contributor Bobby Kahn read the fine print and discovered the firm which conducted the survey, the Polling Company, appears to have mistakenly polled the old 8th District, which Collins represented.
Only about 13 percent of Collins’ old district is in the one he’s running in this year, and in any case being ahead by a point on your own turf is nothing to write home about.
Ted Prill of the Collins campaign said he hadn’t been aware of the immigration poll until this week, and quickly brought the subject around to President Bush visit on Collins’ behalf next week, which he said “affirms this is a very competitive and close race.� Although, not in Marshall’s poll.
This confusion, by the way, is what comes of fun with numbers.
Back in the ‘90s, when Democrats wanted Newt Gingrich to relocate to a Republican-rich Northside district, they moved his number: the 6th. The Democrats thought they could win the 8rd district, which is what most of the Southside area Gingrich had represented became. But Collins won and stayed there until his 2004 Senate race.
We suspect Republicans had something of the same thing in mind last year when they put Collins’ old number on the newly drawn Central Georgia district, most of which had been the 3rd.
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The judge’s white gloves come off: His own mother sued him?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lesson No. 236 in Georgia politics: Make a lady judge mad, and she doesn’t get even. She gets even plus attorney fees and court costs, plus damages and punitive fines. And to boot, she gives you 20 to serve.
Carol Hunstein, the incumbent Supreme Court justice, has just let loose what’s probably the most brutal ad Georgia’s ever seen in a judicial race. She tells the world that her opponent, Bush administration counselor Mike Wiggins, was sued by his own mother, and was accused by his own sister of threatening to kill her — the sister — when she was eight months pregnant.
Mike Wiggins campaign has denied all charges in the Hunstein ad, and calls its content “cruel, false and personal.”
This is a long file, and we’ve got a good deal of back and forth to wade through.
First, see the ad here.
This is the transcript:
“We expect only experienced judges to serve on Georgia’s Supreme Court. But Mike Wiggins has never tried a case.
“We expect our Supreme Court to uphold Georgia values. But Mike Wiggins was sued by his own mother for taking her money. He sued his only sister. She said he threatened to kill her while she was eight months pregnant. A judge ordered Wiggins never to have contact with her again.
“Mike Wiggins. The wrong experience. The wrong values for the Supreme Court.”
Here’s the Wiggins response, passed to us at 2 p.m. Given the seriousness of the issue, we present most of it verbatim below:
“FACT: Mike has been through at least three detailed FBI background checks. He held some of the highest security clearances in the federal government. Those background checks concluded there was absolutely zero reason to question Mike’s personal integrity.
“HUNSTEIN SAYS: ‘We expect only experienced judges to serve on Georgia ’s Supreme Court. But Mike Wiggins has never tried a case.’
“FALSE: Mike Wiggins has tried cases in court. In fact, he has won a ruling from the Georgia Court of Appeals as well as several federal courts. And, Mike has controlled appellate litigation on the most complex constitutional issues at the top courts in the country including several that went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“HUNSTEIN SAYS: ‘We expect our Supreme Court to uphold Georgia values. But Mike Wiggins was sued by his own mother for taking her money.’
“FALSE: Mike and his mother agreed together upon a lawsuit on a promissory note as a way of recovering money that was stolen by a third party. Mike recovered the money taken, returned it to his mother, and the lawsuit was dismissed.
“HUNSTEIN SAYS: ‘He sued his only sister, she said he threatened to kill her while she was 8 months pregnant.’
“FALSE: Mike has never threatened his sister, and any charge that he did is utterly false. Mike did file a motion in a guardianship case to prevent the removal of life sustaining care from his mother while she was in a coma. Years earlier, at his mother’s request, Mike made a promise to her that he would protect her life and her life savings. The order entered by the court completely vindicated Mike’s position in the case. It gave him sole control over his mother’s finances and health care, and ordered that personal property be returned to the estate and that over $12,000 be repaid to the estate.
“HUNSTEIN SAYS: ‘A Judge ordered Wiggins never to have contact with her again.’
“FALSE: At Mike’s own request, in the very same order discussed above, the judge ordered that Mike ‘not initiate any direct personal contact with [her] and that [she] shall not initiate any direct personal contact with [him] in perpetuity.’ It was in fact a mutual instruction to ‘initiate direct personal contact’ only through the lawyers in the case. As noted above, the judge also gave Mike sole control over his mother’s health care decisions and over her modest financial resources and ordered that more that $12,000 and personal property be returned to the estate and placed under Mike’s protection as his mother’s guardian and conservator.
Finally, here’s the Hustein response to the Wiggins response, handed to us at 3:30 p.m. by Hustein spokesman Linton Johnson:
“Mr. Wiggins is asking Georgia voters to trust him with a seat on our state’s highest court, but he has no judicial record and therefore very little is known about him. This ad informs Georgians of his lack of experience and raises serious questions about his judicial temperament. It is our understanding that Mr. Wiggins has declined many opportunities to talk with the news media about his qualifications for office, or lack thereof. This ad fills that information gap.
“Justice Hunstein is under attack by an outside group that has raised and spent hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, to spread outrageous distortions of her 22-year record of judicial service.
“It’s an attempt by the insurance industry and other special interests to buy a seat on the Supreme Court. Did they think Justice Hunstein and her supporters would let them do so without a fight?â€?
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Mark Taylor’s newest ad: His own ‘Sonny do’ list
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Taylor, the Democratic candidate for governor, has another 30-second TV spot trying to take Republican incumbent Sonny Perdue down a peg or two. You can see it here
The ad is a catalog of Tayor’s past attacks on Perdue: the Florida land deal, the accompanying tax break, state budget cuts to education, and to health care.
Normally, multi-faceted attacks don’t work that well — too many things for viewers to choose from. This could be different. Taylor uses his own Sonny-do list as a hook to give the ad some necessary organization.
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Statesboro to Sugar Land: A busy day
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’ve learned a little more about President Bush’s itinerary for next week, when he’ll be campaigning for both Max Burns and Mac Collins.
The Burns event has been set for Monday morning on the campus of Georgia Southern University in Statesboro. That afternoon, Bush will appear at an airport rally in Sugar Land, Tex., Tom DeLay’s old district. Republicans are trying to preserve that formerly safe district with a write-in candidate, Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, opposing Democratic former Rep. Nick Lampson.
That means Bush won’t be overnighting in Georgia. He returns Tuesday afternoon — just when the kids will be getting ready to go trick-or-treating — for a rally in Perry.
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Strategic Vision poll is out: Perdue and Cagle up, but Bush coat-tails look pretty short
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Strategic Vision, the Republican-oriented public affairs firm, has a new poll out, showing Republicans Sonny Perdue and Casey Cagle expanding their leads in the races for governor and lieutenant governor, respectively.
But given the fact that President Bush is due here next week — twice — those are probably the more arresting numbers.
As usual, we endorse no poll but our own. The three-day poll of 800 likely Georgia voters was conducted Oct. 20-22. It has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
According to the SV poll:
— Bush’s overall approval rating stands at 43 percent, and his disapproval level stands at 40 percent. Remember — this poll has a three-point margin of error.
— The numbers are better when it comes to Bush’s handling of the economy. Forty-nine percent approve, 42 percent disapprove.
— On Iraq: 41 approve of what Bush is doing, and 49 percent disapprove.
— On Bush and the war on terror, the president climbs to a 53 percent approval rating, with 39 percent disapproving.
— On immigration, Bush scores a dismal 34 percent approval, and 57 percent disapproval.
The best news for Republicans in Georgia may be voters’ sense of direction. Fifty-six percent said the state’s headed in the right direction. That also might be good news for incumbents of any stripe, such as state Agriculture Commissioner Tommy Irvin, Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond, and Attorney General Thurbert Baker, all Democrats.
Now, as to the horse-races scored by SV:
— In the governor’s race: Perdue, 51 percent; Democrat Mark Taylor, 32 percent; and Libertarian Garrett Hayes, 9 percent. Eight percent are undecided.
— For lieutenant governor: Cagle, 47 percent; Democrat Jim Martin, 39 percent; and Libertarian Allen Buckley, 7 percent. Seven percent undecided.
— For secretary of state: Republican Karen Handel at 35 percent; Democrat, Gail Buckner, 29 percent; and Libertarian Kevin Madsen, 3 percent. A third of voters undecided.
— For attorney general: Baker, 48 percent; Republican Perry McGuire, 29 percent. Twenty-three percent undecided.
— For school superintendent: Republican incumbent Kathy Cox, 46 percent; Democrat Denise Majette, 30 percent; and Libertarian David Chastain, 3 percent. Twenty-one percent undecided.
— For state agriculture commissioner: Irvin, at 49 percent; Republican Gary Black, at 35 percent; and Libertarian Jack Cashin, at 2 percent. Fourteen percent are undecided.
— For state insurance commissioner: Incumbent Republican John Oxendine, 51 percent; and Democrat Guy Drexinger, 30 percent. Nineteen percent undecided.
— For state labor commissioner: Thurmond at 45 percent; and Republican Brent Brown, 35 percent. Twenty percent undecided.
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Nap time’s over: Martin hits Cagle on predatory lending
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia’s sleepy race for lieutenant governor woke up .
Democratic candidate Jim Martin has gone up with a 30-second ad attacking Republican Casey Cagle for his support of “predatory lending” practices that “prey on our families, seniors, even soldiers.”
Expect Cagle to respond in kind. They’ve been holding fire.
The Martin ad accuses Cagle of gutting a bill to restrain the practice, and taking campaign contributions from the industry.
Brad Alexander, a spokesman for Cagle, called the ad a falsehood.
“The legislation Martin references would not force anyone out of their homes, and was in fact a bipartisan effort to reform a 2002 Democrat bill that was significantly endangering Georgia homebuyers,” he said.
We know where W will be on Halloween
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At the insistence of the Secret Service, the White House usually doesn’t announce political trips by the President until a few days before they happen, but these days it’s harder to keep a lid on. Last week a couple of blogs reported, correctly as it turns out, that President Bush will be in Georgia next Monday and Tuesday to campaign a second time for Max Burns and Mac Collins.
That’s two of the last eight days Bush will have to campaign for anybody, in the election which will set the stage for the last two years of his presidency.
That must say something about the administration’s confidence that Bush can still have an impact in Georgia. It’s probably also a tip as to how much Bush is wanted in the dozens of Congressional districts where incumbent Republicans are under fire this year.
But Bush’s visits to Georgia may also be a forerunner of what’s ahead in terms of his relations with Congress in the afternoon of his presidency.
Bush came to Washington with glowing stories about how well he worked as governor with Democrats in the Texas legislature. This year he’s going to make not one, but two campaign appearances against both Jim Marshall and John Barrow, two Democrats who have consistently supported him on Iraq.
If Bush helps to beat Marshall and Barrow and the Republicans still lose control of the House, he’s got an even harder patch in terms of Congressional relations, if that’s possible, than he would have. The next two years are shaping up increasingly as an era of no quarter expected, and no quarter given.
No boobs here: In first ad, Libertarian Hayes gets serious
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Libertarian Party of Georgia is broadcasting its first-ever 30-second TV ads for its gubernatorial candidate, Garrett Michael Hayes.
It’s a small buy, worth about $5,000, that will be scattered on cable TV networks across the state. You can see it here. It’ll show on TV about 700 or 800 times.
Just like there’s a right and left side to Libertarians, there’s a serious and not-so-serious side as well. In Alabama, the Libertarian write-in candidate is campaigning on her cleavage.
Her boobs, says Loretta Nall, are better than the ones currently running the state. This according to the Associated Press.
But in Georgia, Hayes is going the conservative, dead serious route. In his TV spot, he advocates the elimination of the state income tax, “family control� of education, and federal enforcement of the nation’s borders.
�This is the most exciting Libertarian race in the nation,� said Doug Craig, the party’s political director. Polls have put Hayes as high as 9 percent or so.
Craig notes that the best that Libertarians have done came in a Public Service Commission race, in which the Libertarian drew 6.1 percent of the vote statewide.
�It’s going to be hard in a governor’s race to beat that,� Craig said.
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Cox’s husband: Let’s get behind Jim Martin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Aside from the people within Mark Taylor’s campaign, those most worried about the poor numbers being put up by the nominee for governor are Democrats who will appear on the ballot with him in little more than two weeks.
Taylor’s primary weakness has been his inability to unify his base: white women, African-Americans of both sexes, environmentalists, etc.
Several key Democrats have told us — going back several months — that Jim Martin, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, would become the vehicle for unifying base voters, with the hope of creating a firewall to protect down-ballot candidates.
The first major sign of this came Saturday, when Martin’s campaign sent out a fund-raising letter to supporters of Secretary of State Cathy Cox, the woman who has so far refused to be seen with Taylor following her defeat in the July primary for governor.
At the bottom of the letter is the signature of Mark Dehler, Cox’s husband.
Says Dehler:
“Thank you for all of your hard work and support for my wife, Cathy Cox, in her run for Governor. With your help, we tried to raise the issues that you and I care about. Although Cathy did not win, I am proud of the race we ran and sincerely appreciate your support.
“I write today to ask you to support Jim Martin in his race for Lieutenant Governor. Jim is a long-time friend of Cathy’s and mine. We have known him and his family for over 20 years. He is a man of exceptional integrity, political courage, and commitment to the issues we care about.”
And not a word about Taylor.
Mary Perdue: The star of her husband’s campaign
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republican incumbent Sonny Perdue has another TV ad up. And again it features his wife Mary. She’s the main character, speaking directly to the camera. She endorses her husband’s character, ending with: “We’d be honored to serve you again for the next four years.”
Why the Perdue campaign has taken this tack is clear. It’s a threefer.
You boost Sonny Perdue’s warm-and-fuzzy numbers.
You get an attractive, soothing female to smooth over any doubts raised by Democrat Mark Taylor about Perdue’s Florida land deal and the accompanying tax break passed by the Legislature.
And you reinforce the split between Taylor and the women of Georgia.
In the past, candidates for governor in Georgia have been very protective in the way they’ve featured their spouses in campaigns. Usually, they’re no more than a bit of stock footage in a commercial.
Here’s the question, and the risk for the Perdue campaign: When the First Lady of Georgia steps out to reassure voters about her husband’s character, when Mary Perdue declares that attacks on her husband’s business interests are “a shame,” does it become fair to ask her specifics about how she came by this knowledge?
Get out your digital recorders and scanners
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The ‘06 election season is entering the red zone, which means it’s about time for sneak attacks and nasty tricks via telephone, the post office, radio, Internet and TV.
But Georgia’s a big state, and this is a small blog.
We need you to park your digital recorder next to your answering machine, which will soon be loaded down with robo-calls. Send the sound files to us. We need you to warm your computer scanner up, so you can reduce those flyers in your mailbox to bytes. So you can send the pdf’s to us.
We’ll post all that we can here. GOTV is all about moving niches of voters. We’re all about letting the red hand know what the blue hand is doing, and vice versa. Let us hear from you.
Sonny gets a gentleman’s ‘C,’ with the possibility of probation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, has never been easy on Sonny Perdue. Cato gave Roy Barnes high marks for his management of tax matters, and it jumped on Perdue hard when he proposed cigarette and alcohol tax increases in his first legislative session as governor.
Cato is out with its latest report card on the fiscal responsibility of the nation’s governors, and Perdue scores an unremarkable-looking C.
Don’t call the graduation coach just yet, however. Cato grades on a hard curve. When you look at the scores, Perdue’s in a four-way tie for 8th place, with Democrats Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Brad Henry of Oklahoma and Tom Vilsack of Iowa.
“If Perdue wins a second term,” says the study, “he could improve his grade by finally cutting taxes for a change.”
Cagle goes up on TV, urges Martin to play nice
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Casey Cagle, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, has gone up on TV with a pair of softball 30-second spots essentially re-introducing himself to voters after this summer’s knock-down-drag-out with Ralph Reed.
More interestingly, the Gainesville state senator has put out a plea to his Democratic opponent, attorney and ex-lawmaker Jim Martin of Atlanta.
Cagle notes that Martin has reserved two weeks of TV air time, and claims that he “has received received several credible reports from individuals with specific knowledge of the Martin campaign’s strategy that Martin’s media advisors are pushing him to use that time to air attack ads. Reportedly, those ads — if aired — will attempt to distort Cagle’s legislative record as well as attacking him personally.”
One wonders if this is an attempt at inoculation. Gov. Sonny Perdue put out a similar plea for peace before sending out those mailers on Mark Taylor, his Democratic rival.
The response from the Martin campaign was bloodless and unrevealing: “We’ve been running a campaign for more than a year now based on Jim’s record, and we’re going to continue to do that,” said spokesman Will Martin.
You can see what Martin has in mind on Tuesday, Oct. 24. That’s when his ads hit.
The Miller-on-Marshall mailer
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You’ve read the story about U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall’s use of a two-year-old quote from Zell Miller. Now see the mailer that started it.
Kind of reminds us of those kind words — “but don’t call it an endorsement” — that Newt Gingrich expressed for Ralph Reed this summer.
Letters from the editors: Not good publicity for Republicans
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republicans are taking heat from two major down-state newspapers this morning, over the State Election Board’s decision to send out letters implying that a law requiring photo IDs at the poll was still in force. A judge had put a hold on enforcement.
Democrats had called the move a voter-suppression effort aimed at the elderly and African-American voters.
Editorials in both the Augusta Chronicle and the Macon Telegraph used harsh language, particularly taking aim at board member Tex McIver, who was in charge of the project.
Said the Chronicle:
“The letter confused the heck out of us - because we know what the law is. And that letter clearly misstates the law.
“Amazingly, McIver said he’d do it all again because the ‘rest’ of the letter had educational value. What educational value is there in grossly misleading the public?
“We don’t blame our Democratic friends for sniffing a dirty trick. It smells like one.”
Said the Telegraph:
“The Republican-controlled state government wants Georgia voters to be required to use an official photo ID at the polls, so the Republican-controlled State Election Board sent out a letter saying this is the case in an effort to confuse voters and cut back voting by minorities and the elderly.
“These are the groups who are more likely to vote for Democrats, and they are the ones least likely to have a driver’s license, the most common form of photo identification. If that was the intention, then the board accomplished what it set out to do.
“Even if correction letters are mailed, this outrageous deception will still result in many people not voting because they will be thoroughly confused over the photo ID issue. It goes without saying that taxpayer money in the amount of $254,000 was also wasted.
“For those reasons a head should roll. We nominate Tex McIver for that honor.”
As the worm turns, part two
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A couple of days ago, Republican Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas was in Macon stumping for Republican congressional challenger Mac Collins. The press release announcing Smith’s visit confidently referred to him as the “next chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.�
Smith will be the chairman, that is, if the Republicans hold on to the majority in the House in the November election. And as of Tuesday, even Vice President Dick Cheney, talking to Rush Limbaugh, would say only that he thought the GOP had a “good shot� at that.
Which is a good place to start what could be a long discussion about the potential impact on Georgia of an election in which the key battlegrounds are in other states.
Candidates in Georgia have grown accustomed to calling attention to the influence they could wield in Washington, and the powerful allies they have. Party allegiances have changed over time, but with only a small bump in the early ‘50s, Georgia has been in the functional majority ever since FDR and the Great Depression.
On Nov. 7, that might change.
The state’s overall clout in Washington, already greatly declined since the departure of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, might sag even more. No longer would the state’s seven Republicans, assuming that’s how many there would be, have any sway with the House leadership.
Don’t feel guilty if you need reminding that the state’s six Democratic House members are John Lewis, Sanford Bishop, Cynthia McKinney (who would be replaced next year by Hank Johnson if he wins in November), Jim Marshall, David Scott and John Barrow.
You can expect to hear a lot more about this group if they become part of a Democratic House majority next year. With a pipeline to the House leadership, they could project an image quite different from the days when McKinney made all the headlines.
And while it probably wouldn’t wash in most of the state’s solidly grown Republican districts, you might begin to hear Democratic challenger candidates make the argument that with one more Democrat the state’s delegation could once again be mainly on the majority side.
That’s peering into elections beyond this one, which is still very much in doubt. But it’s a first pass at how the world – including Georgia – might change this Election Day.
Strategic Vision poll: A down-ballot view
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Strategic Vision, the GOP-oriented public affairs firm in Atlanta, has a statewide poll out today. Its view of the governor’s race echoes the survey put out by Insider Advantage earlier this week.
But Strategic Vision also has some interesting numbers on the down-ballot races — which show that incumbent Democrats are in pretty good shape.
The SV poll also shows the impact of the Mark Foley scandal on attitudes toward Congress. U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert should be glad he ain’t from around here.
The poll is a three-day survey of 800 likely Georgia voters, with a margin of error of three percentage points. As with any poll — excepting our own, of course — we don’t endorse the results. But neither can we resist them.
Here’s a sampling of topics:
— When asked if they believed that GOP congressional leaders handled the Mark Foley scandal properly, 19 percent said ‘yes,’ and 59 percent said no. Twenty-two percent were undecided.
— 48 percent said Hastert should step down.
— In the match-up for governor, Republican incumbent Sonny Perdue scored 50 percent; Democrat Mark Taylor had 36 percent; Libertarian Garrett Michael Hayes had 5 percent; and 9 percent remained undecided.
— For lieutenant governor, Republican Casey Cagle led with 45 percent; Democrat Jim Martin was close behind at 38 percent; and Libertarian Allen Buckley received 5 percent. Undecideds were 12 percent.
— In the race for Secretary of State, Republican Karen Handel led Democrat Gail Buckner, 33 percent to 27 percent.
— For attorney general, incumbent Democrat Thurbert Baker led Republican Perry McGuire 47 percent to 26 percent.
— In the school superintendent’s race, Republican incumbent Kathy Cox led Democrat Denise Majette 47 percent to 29 percent.
— In the race for state agriculture commissioner, incumbent Democrat Tommy Irvin led Republican Gary Black 47 percent to 33 percent.
— For state Insurance commissioner, incumbent Republican John Oxendine led Democrat Guy Drexinger 49 percent to 29 percent.
— And in the race for state labor commissioner, incumbent Democrat Michael Thurmond led Republican Brent Brown 47percent to 31 percent.
Cox still appears with Democrats. Maybe it’s something personal with Taylor.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Secretary Cathy Cox may prefer appearances with Gov. Sonny Perdue, a Republican, to standing side-by-side with her former Democratic rival, Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor.
But she’s still cultivating support among Democrats, particularly in state House races. On Tuesday, Cox paid a visit to Gainesville on behalf of Lydia Sartain, the former district attorney who’s running against state Rep. Carl Rogers, the Republican incumbent.
It’s a tighter than expected race, though Rogers has a clear financial advantage.
Cox wouldn’t use the word “endorse” when it came to Sartain. But she went after Rogers with a shovel for his authorship of changes to state laws regulating cemeteries. Here’s the report from Harris Blackwood of the Gainesville Times.
We also talked yesterday to House Minority Leader DuBose Porter of Dublin. He said Cox is on the hook to help Democrats reclaim her old House seat, now occupied by Gene Maddox of Cairo. Maddox, a Republican, is facing Stanley Mobley of Whigham.
As the worm turns, part one
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last Friday, in a press conference announcing the latest polling evidence of a Republican debacle, Democratic strategist James Carville advised his party to, in effect, swing for the bleachers.
Support for Republican congressional incumbents has fallen so dramatically in the 49 competitive, Republican-held U.S. House districts surveyed in the latest Democracy Corps poll, Carville said, that there must be other winnable districts out there where Democrats never dreamed they had a chance. To cash in on what he described as a historic opportunity, Bill Clinton’s former campaign manager advised state parties to borrow money to pump into congressional races.
The Republicans’ ability to pull a rabbit out of the hat in the past few elections, and the fact that the same polls which show the Republicans in free fall don’t register any great enthusiasm for Democrats either, should be enough to inject a little skepticism into these heady reports.
But it does make you wonder, if Georgia Democrats swung for the bleachers, what would they swing at? As a young activist commented this week, Georgia Democrats have run away from their national party so long, they wouldn’t know how to run with it.
You can judge the truth of that comment from Rep. John Barrow’s ad in which he attacks challenger Max Burns for his support of a national sales tax, which the administration also opposes.
“I agree with George Bush on that one,� the Democrat Barrow says.
National Journal has moved the Barrow-Burns race and the Jim Marshall-Mac Collins downward on their list of competitive House races – but on the other hand, the list of competitive races has grown longer. No targeted incumbents, even Democrats, can rest entirely easy this year – hence Barrow’s effort to deflect Bush’s campaign stop for his opponent last month.
Despite some spirited Democratic opposition, none of Georgia’s Republican House members are on anybody’s list of vulnerable seats, but this election might still be a life-changing experience for them. We will return to that subject shortly.
One of the few people eligible to joke about missing fingers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former U.S. senator Max Cleland is in Montana, campaigning for Democrat Jon Tester, who’s running against GOP incumbent U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns. This in today’s Billings Gazette:
“During his speech, Cleland made light of his own amputations by grabbing Tester’s left hand, which is missing three fingers lost in a meat grinder.
“‘At least he won’t be putting his hand in the till like someone we know,’ Cleland said, referring to Burns’ campaign donations of about $150,000 from Jack Abramoff, his clients and associates.”
Christian Coalition of Georgia becomes the Georgia Christian Alliance
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just in time for her voter guides, Sadie Fields has unveiled the name of her new group, formerly known as the Christian Coalition of Georgia.
It will be the Georgia Christian Alliance, as many predicted. Christian Coalition chapters in Alabama, Iowa, and Ohio have re-titled themselves similarly, lending strength to the supposition that — at some point — they’ll make a go at a national organization to rival the once powerful Christian Coalition.
We predict a confederacy rather than a federation.
The national Christian Coalition is currently remaking itself — a process that had Fields and leaders of Christian Coalition chapters in other states accusing its leader, Roberta Combs, of leftward drift.
But if there is to be a national Christian Alliance, it will need a national leader with experience in the field. Who’s great on TV and capable of raising money. There’s got to be someone who fits that profile.
McKinney makes Top 10 (Dumbest)
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
She may be a short-timer, but Rep. Cynthia McKinney has placed 7th in a just-released list of America’s 10 dumbest members of Congress.
The survey of the top 10 “fools on the Hill” by radaronline.com, puts Florida’s embattled Rep. Katherine Harris – “the product of a demented government experiment gone horribly wrong” — tops on the list, which includes six Republicans and four Democrats.
McKinney is noted for her “famously bad hair,� her run-in with a Capitol cop and a tendency to threaten newspapers (this one, actually) with lawsuits.
Perdue drops 6 points on Taylor’s TV ads
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Insider Advantage is out with its latest poll, which shows Republican incumbent Sonny Perdue dropping below the 50 percent mark in the race for governor since early October.
The dip coincides with TV attacks by Democratic rival Mark Taylor on the governor’s Florida land deal, and an accompanying $100,000 tax deferral passed by the Legislature.
The poll shows Perdue at 48 percent, down from 54 percent early this month. Taylor’s numbers have dropped, too, to 28 percent. And the ranks of undecided voters have increased.
For details, go to Insider Advantage’s home here — but be aware that it is a subscription site.
Eyes west and south, please — away from D.C.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The gay marriage crisis has passed. It’s time to worry about the fight over illegal immigration.
No, not that fight — not in Washington. Out there — in New Mexico, where 150 Georgia boys and girls in national guard uniforms stand in the hot sun, watching the U.S. border.
Two years ago, Republicans rode to glory on dozens of statewide referendums to ban same-sex unions. In Georgia, the state GOP seized the House, completing their grasp of power. Nationally, President Bush’s re-election victory was widely credited to “values voters.�
But this is 2006. Values voters are disenchanted, their enthusiasm sapped by any number of things: the Jack Abramoff scandal, Iraq, even the Mark Foley affair. In Georgia, many evangelical conservatives remain emotionally flattened by the summer defeat of Ralph Reed in the primary for lieutenant governor.
Something is needed to stir Republican blood. And so in color brochures, on TV, on radio, and in speeches, in races for the state Legislature, Congress, governor, and lieutenant governor, immigration has become the topic of choice.
You’ll remember this from Gov. Sonny Perdue: “It’s simply unacceptable for people to sneak into the country illegally on Thursday, obtain a government-issued ID on Friday, head for the welfare office on Friday and go to vote on Tuesday.�
Last month, many thought that statement a stray one-liner. Now it’s clear that it was an introduction.
Up in northeast Georgia, state Sen. Nancy Schaefer is running for re-election. She is the most vulnerable Republican incumbent in the Senate, and the Legislature’s most prominent advocate of conservative Christian causes.
But on her campaign web site, topping her list of issues is illegal immigration. She and two other Republican legislators have just gotten back from inspecting Georgia troops in Columbus, New Mexico, right across from Palomas, Chihuahua in Mexico. It’s just possible that a few pictures from their visit will be used in campaign brochures.
“It’s the No. 1 issue in my district,� Schaefer said.
“Everywhere you go, that’s what the Republican party is saying,� said Carol Jackson, the Democrat trying to oust Schaefer. “They’ve got nothing else to talk about.�
Another example: In House District 29, Democratic incumbent Alan Powell of Hartwell faces Republican Mike Griffin. Griffin is a local pastor and executive director of Ten Commandments-Georgia, a group dedicated to seeing the biblical laws on display in public buildings across the state.
Griffin has put out his first TV ad, funded by the state GOP. His issues are jobs, education, and “Georgia’s tough stance on illegal immigration.� He’s sent out a mailer, also paid for by the state party, featuring troops with binoculars on one side, and shadowy figures climbing a corrugated wall on the other.
There’s more to come in other races. We’ve come across a pair of photos destined for GOP brochures, of a Mexican bus station. The wall lists its destinations: Atlanta, Dalton, Gainesville, Rome, and las Carolinas.
Immigration may seem like a dicey choice for Republicans.
The failure of the Republican-controlled Congress to handle the issue, and the unpopularity of Bush’s solution for the Hispanic influx, are major ingredients in the national GOP malaise.
But by pointing at the troops — always a visually impressive thing to do — and at a largely symbolic piece of legislation passed by the General Assembly this year, Republicans hope to persuade their disaffected base that the GOP ticket in Georgia is filled with nothing but people on their side.
In other words, Washington outsiders.
The search for the new anti-Hillary
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner’s announcement this week that he wouldn’t run for the Democratic presidential nomination was the first bombshell of the ’08 campaign, and nowhere more so than Atlanta.
“Had he stayed in the race he would have owned Atlanta, and Georgia,� said businessman and Democratic fundraiser Kirk Dornbush.
Dornbush is prejudiced – he’d already signed on to work on the finance side of the Warner campaign. But it’s true Warner had a big leg up on any other Democratic presidential hopeful in Georgia.
The square-jawed entrepreneur-governor raised a lot of money in Atlanta from Democrats and even a few Republicans, gave money to Democratic legislative candidates, and had important commitments across racial lines.
As the other Southerner in the race, Sen. John Edwards might seem likeliest to benefit from Warner’s departure, and to some degree he probably will. But a number of those who were signing on early with Warner, like Dornbush, were with Edwards four years ago and had already turned the page. Not that you can’t turn the page back.
Interestingly, the first name mentioned in a couple of conversations we had this week was that of Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana. By coincidence, we understand Bayh will be in Atlanta Monday paying some calls on local Democrats.
Bayh’s a University of Virginia law school grad, which isn’t a bad avenue for picking up former Warner supporters, noted Keith Mason. As a two-time governor of a conservative Midwestern state as well as a senator, there’s some thinking he could appeal to Southern voters.
For that matter, don’t rule out New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, both of whom have worked this territory.
The name of Hillary Clinton didn’t come up when we were talking to Democrats about Warner’s departure, incidentally. It didn’t have to. Warner had been cast as the anti-Hillary before his surprise exit, and the competition to see who’ll be the new one won’t take long.
‘Warmest regards, Sonny Perdue, Bonaire, Ga.’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Earlier this week, this space featured Gov. Sonny Perdue’s tete-a-tete with the sports gurus of radio’s 680 The Fan, over Journal-Constitution coverage of the Georgia Bulldogs.
Perdue was accused of having more important things to do than to complain about headline writers in a sports department.
“I wrote that letter as a citizen. The paper’s the one making a big deal out of it. I wrote what I felt,� the governor protested. “I signed it ‘Sonny Perdue, Bonaire, Ga.’�
Well, not really.
At least, not the part about signing it as a simple man from a simple hometown. And not the part about writing it as a citizen. Unless most citizens have a state-salaried Boswell at hand.
We talked to Dan McLagan, the governor’s spokesman And the information we’ve gleaned is useful as a lesson in how political events happen.
Fact 1: The governor witnessed an excellent first half by the Bulldogs last Saturday — in person, from the president’s suite.
Fact 2: On Sunday morning, the governor picked up the sports section, and took offense. The headline in question: “Dogs get put in their place.�
Fact 3: That afternoon, Perdue and McLagan conferred about a letter of protest to the AJC. The governor, who has been on the receiving end a few AJC headlines lately, outlined a few thoughts for McLagan to fill in.
Fact 4: McLagan sent the governor a draft. It was signed, per the governor’s instructions, “Sonny Perdue, Bonaire, Ga.� We have a copy of the draft, and hereby acknowledge that it was written during an employee’s off-hours, in the middle of a three-day weekend.
Perdue, on his way to Lynchburg, Va., to visit the Rev. Jerry Falwell, apparently didn’t like much of it. An aide sent McLagan a much-changed revision, via a campaign BlackBerry. Without “Sonny Perdue, Bonaire, Ga.�
Fact 5: McLagan bounced the e-mail to the editor of the AJC’s op-ed pages, with this message: “Gov wanted to submit this.� And no mention of “Sonny Perdue, Bonaire, Ga.�
Ever the faithful servant, McLagan has fallen on his sword in the matter. The governor thought he was writing as a simple man from a simple hometown. It was his director of communications who forgot.
Bush in Macon: Hunkering down
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The first thing that struck us about President Bush’s fundraising appearance for Mac Collins in Macon this week was the size of the room.
Presidents multi-task, we know. But it still is the case that Bush flew to Georgia Tuesday – the day after the North Koreans announced their nuclear test and four weeks before the Congressional elections – to make one appearance in a space that was, as these things go, fairly intimate.
By the time the big-check contributors filtered in from the smaller event where they got their picture taken with the President, there may have been 500 people in the room. They gave Bush a warm welcome, but this was a far cry from the crowds he spoke to campaigning in Georgia during the 2002 congressional elections – or for that matter, when he was here last month in Atlanta and Savannah.
Bush’s campaign speech was substantially different as well. Last month, the War on Terrorism was the keynote. On Tuesday, the first part of Bush’s speech was about taxes, and it was clearly hunker-down talk: an appeal to the Republican base to remember a bedrock issue that predates 9/11.
According to today’s Macon Telegraph, the event raised between $400,000 and $450,000, depending on who’s estimating. The Marshall campaign has released estimates of comparable trips by the General Accounting Office and the Washington Post, which would put the costs the Collins campaign would have to pick up at between $297,000 and $448,000.
Even throwing out the larger estimate, that’s a big bite.
Bush’s visit probably says something about the importance Republican strategists place on this race, one of the few where they see any chance of a GOP pickup to offset their losses elsewhere.
But what may have seemed like insurance a few months ago today looks like part of the Republicans’ increasing dilemma. Taking this district away from incumbent Rep. Jim Marshall is no easy proposition, with or without a presidential visit, and the party’s prospects in other key districts are even tougher.
Sonny’s counterpunch: $40 million? What $40 million?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republican incumbent Sonny Perdue on Wednesday put a new TV ad in rotation, contradicting the value that Democratic rival Mark Taylor on a Florida land purchase. See it here.
The governor engages in a bit of sarcasm, offering to sell the land to Taylor for $10 million. (We’re forming a conglomerate now to make Perdue our own offer. Let us know if you want in.)
As always, it’s interesting to see what ground a candidate picks out to defend. The governor’s ad states that since Taylor got the $40 million figure wrong, nothing else the Democrat says can be believed.
Perdue didn’t choose to dispute Taylor’s subsequent ad, which calls attention to the $100,000 tax deferral that followed the Florida purchase.
Cathy Cox makes her first appearance….with Sonny Perdue?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The press release just rolled out. Secretary of State Cathy Cox will make her first highlighted appearance tomorrow since her July defeat in the Democratic primary for governor.
It won’t be at the side of Mark Taylor, the fellow who beat her. Here’s the headline on the release, issued by her office:
“Secretary Cox, Governor Perdue to Cut Ribbon on New Capitol Museum Exhibit Tomorrow at 9:30 a.m.” The small event is on the fourth floor of the Capitol.
Expect many TV cameras, and a very gracious governor. Perhaps even a thankful one.
Disabled kids, an accusation from one ex-governor, and a ‘no comment’ from a sitting one
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tip of the hat to Peach Pundit for this one: A video clip by CBS-46 reporter Wendy Saltzman, taking a look at Medicaid cuts to disabled children, is making Democratic rounds as a campaign talking point.
Expect Mark Taylor, the Democratic nominee for governor, to make use of it at Thursday’s fairground debate near Perry.
Former Gov. Roy Barnes and state Sen. David Adelman of Decatur, both Democrats, are featured in the Saltzman piece. Perdue refused to be interviewed. (See our Sept. 16 blog, “Signs that you have a 20-point lead in the polls).
View the CBS-46 clip here.
Meet Sonny Perdue: First-time caller, long-time listener
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At 680 The Fan, WCNN-AM, they rarely delve into politics.
But the station couldn’t resist that letter in the Journal-Constitution from Gov. Sonny Perdue, ripping the AJC for ripping the Georgia Bulldogs with a headline after the ‘Dogs 51-33 collapse to Tennessee.
And we all know how Perdue loves to chat on radio talk shows.
Yes, we realize that some of you doubters may be asking the following question: Is a radio frequency committed to dissecting and fragging every single move in professional and college sports — is this really the place to argue that a general circulation newspaper should focus on preserving fragile egos and exert itself in nothing but gentle nudges toward the good and decent?
Your answer to this question is belated, and thus does not matter.
On Tuesday, the governor was booked for a call on the afternoon show hosted by former Georgia Bulldog quarterback Buck Belue and seven-year veteran John Kincade. Here’s what happened, after Perdue said hello.
KINCADE: I tell you, I woke up this morning and I read this stuff in the AJC, and I was a little chinked, I gotta tell you. And it’s good we can have a little dialogue here.
‘Cause I’m looking at it, and I say — [I’m] a fine supporter of my seated governor, and I want to see you back in there again to continue your good work — but I wasn’t pleased with the note you hammered out to the AJC.
PERDUE: Why’s that?
KINCADE: Because I think that you’ve got better things to worry about, and it’s not the governor’s job to tell the AJC what headline should be in the sports section.
PERDUE: I wrote that letter as a citizen. The paper’s the one making a big deal out of it. I wrote what I felt. I exercised my free speech —
KINCADE: Aw, Governor —
PERDUE: That’s the great thing about America —
KINCADE: Governor, you know if you send in a note to the AJC, as the seated governor in this state, it’s not going to be handled as a private citizen. I know that you can say that to me, but that is going to get front page news because you’re the governor.
PERDUE:I signed it ‘Sonny Perdue, Bonaire, Ga.’
KINCADE: Yeah, I understand that, how you signed it, Governor. But this sounds like it goes much deeper than a sports headline about the Georgia Bulldogs. This sounds like a personal feud that you’ve got with the AJC.
PERDUE: Let me tell you what it stems from. It stems from whether a major paper in the state — I think you read the letter — whether it’s the front page or the business page, and now the sports page — what I said was, they celebrate our losses, and cancel our victories.
And that’s from all over, that’s anything in Georgia — and somebody needs to speak up on it….
KINCADE: Now, Governor, though, have I seen you speak up about Georgia having the worst graduation rates in the SEC in football and basketball
PERDUE: Yeah —
KINCADE: And Georgia’s academic scandals and Georgia’s arrest reports out of the football program —
PERDUE: We’re putting graduation coaches in there so we can help these kids graduate from high school.
KINCADE: No, I’m talking about Georgia, the Georgia football team.
PERDUE: If you’ve been to the Board of Regents, you’ve heard me speak up about the completion rates of all of our students at our universities. I’m concerned about that.
KINCAIDE: What about the arrests within the football program, the academic scandals within the football program?
PERDUE: Now you’re starting to sound like the AJC.
KINCADE: No, I’m just sayin’…..
PERDUE: That’s what they say. Is this the editorial board of the AJC I’m talking to?
KINCADE: No, Governor —
BUCK BELUE: That’s my partner, and I’ve got him five days a week, four hours a day, Governor.
KINCADE: What I am is an objective mind.
PERDUE: Turn his mike off, Buck.
BELUE: Well, we’re doing a road show. I’m not able to do that right now.
KINCADE: Come on, Governor, I’m an objective guy.
BELUE: I’m guessing, Governor, it’s been brewing a long time, and this sort of set you off with the coverage after Saturday night.
PERDUE: It was the final straw, when I got up Sunday morning and read the paper. They’ve been writing it all week. [Garbled] It might have been the final straw for Tech. I’m a supporter of our teams.
I get chafed when the Braves, who’ve won 15 in a row, and when you don’t win one, you think the whole world is coming apart, from the AJC sports writers. And that’s just not right.
I believe we ought to celebrate these kinds of things. They’ve done it to Tech, they’ve done it to the Braves, they’ve done it to the ‘Dogs — all of these things. I’m just fed up with it.
[SHORT BREAK]
KINCADE: Governor, do you ever have a chance to talk football with the president?
PERDUE: I do, I talked to him about it today. I told him, you need to come to the game. And he said, you know, everybody would be magged, at the game, so I have to enjoy it vicariously through watching all you guys.
KINCADE: Now, Governor, one of the things you said in your note — you said other cities celebrate the successes and mourn the losses of local businesses, individuals and sports teams. I gotta tell you, growing up in Philadelphia, that’s not the case about the sports teams.
New York papers, Boston papers, Chicago papers, major markets — when their teams do poorly, pro or college — they’re getting killed.
I went to the worst Division 1 program ever, Temple University, and if you read the Philadelphia paper coverage, it’s miserable about that program. They kill them, every time they can.
PERDUE: Hey, Kincade. I think we’re getting a diagnosis here. You grew up in Philadelphia?
KINCADE: Yes, sir.
PERDUE: Okay. That explains a lot of things.
BELUE: Governor, we’re really pulling for you in the campaign going on. That opponent has already taken some negative shots at you.
Well, we expected that. We’re going to get some blocking in the back, and some clips, and those kinds of things, but we’ll be standing there at the end. I want to thank you guys for having me on today. [Hangs up]
BELUE: I think you irritated him a bit.
KINCADE: I’m sorry, I’m just not on the P.R. team.
Here’s a prediction. At least until Nov. 8, the governor will stick to television. He’s got the money for it.
Remember Brian? Taylor has him explain Perdue’s land deal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The $100,000 tax break that accompanied Gov. Sonny Perdue’s Florida land deal made it onto TV last night, in a 30-second spot by Democratic rival Mark Taylor.
The Big Guy uses the sound from a WAOK talk show in which Perdue is asked by a caller how others might go about getting the same. “You get yourself elected governor, Brian,” was Perdue’s famous reply. For details, go to our Sept. 13 posting.
See the TV clip here.
When life imitates art that imitates life
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State offices were closed Monday to celebrate the Third Day Before Christopher Columbus Landed in America. It’s always nice to see a multi-cultural nod to this special, brief period in 1492 that Native Americans refer to as the Apex of Western Civilization.
The state Capitol was shuttered, too. Except for the movie crew that rented the place out. Reports from security guards and gophers vary. Either a remake of “Revenge of the Nerds” or “Return of the Nerds.” Definitely something to do with nerds.
Word was that Room 341, a massive chamber normally occupied by the House Appropriations Committee, was to be the scene of a climactic, wild fraternity tribunal. They were going for historical accuracy — or so we were told.
Of North Korea, Iraq, Foley — and Casey Cagle
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At a fund-raiser for the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Georgia — let us repeat the strangeness of this venue — at a fund-raiser for the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Georgia, the following topics were seriously addressed:
The North Korea nuclear situation, the difficulties of partitioning Iraq, and — inevitably — the impact of former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley’s alleged predilection for House pages.
And yes, U.S. Sen. John McCain, a presumed member of the ’08 presidential field, said some very nice things about Casey Cagle, the aforementioned candidate for lieutenant governor.
Who beat Ralph Reed in the July primary. See details below, but suffice it to say that McCain is no fan of Reed.
“We know that this was a very high visibility race in the primary, for obvious reasons,� McCain told reporters after giving a closed-door speech to 90 Cagle supporters at an Atlantic Station function. Tickets were $1,000 or so.
Did the 12-point margin over Reed make it more pleasant?
“I think it made it more pleasant, but I would point out that Casey Cagle had a resume that was pretty impressive. I think he won the race on the merits,� McCain said.
“This young man went through one of the one of the most difficult primaries in the history of lieutenant governor elections. I think he ran an honorable campaign,� the senator reiterated.
But there were more important things to talk about.
On the world’s latest nuclear crisis:
“I would like to emphasize that China has a responsibility here. China has influence over North Korea.
“China must understand that increased tensions in Asian and on the Korean peninsula are not good for China. China should act in its self-interest, which is as a mature world power, instead of hanging back, not doing what they should do — and that is exercising enormous influence over North Korea to stop this nonsense immediately.
“This is a very dangerous step, escalation. It’s in China’s court as well as that of the U.N. Security Council.
“If China would enact serious sanctions on North Korea, they could cripple their economy in a matter of days. So they have the influence.
“If China’s willing to be a responsible member of the world community as a superpower, they should act now, act responsibly, and bring this crisis to an end.�
On whether Iraq should be partitioned:
“We have to look at all options, but we’ve tried partitions in the past. Partitions of other countries have always turned out far more difficult than we have anticipated. In Baghdad, Sunni and Shiia live in the same neighborhood.�
On President Bush’s enlistment of Jim Baker to examine alternatives in Iraq:
“I think it’s clear he’s trying to find additional measures that can be taken in Iraq.
“I don’t know what they are. I think he’s an incredibly credible individual, but I certainly see no sign on the part of Jim Baker that we are willing to set a date for withdrawal from Iraq, which is what the Democrats want to do.�
On Mark Foley:
“We should ask for a group of respected, retired congressmen and senators, a small group, to examine this quickly and come up with an allocation of responsibility and recommendations for future action.
“The quicker we put closure to this, the more likely it is we can move on and regain some support from Americans who are unhappy with the situation.�
And on the F-22 made in Marietta:
“My stance on the F-22 was that I supported strongly the F-22 — in fact increased production.
“I opposed multi-year production because I felt that that might precluded decisions that might have to be made in the future.�
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About all those Mexicans: ‘Barnes and Taylor brought them here’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Immigration has become the chosen weapon of the Georgia Republican party for general bashing of Democrats this season.
You’ve seen Gov. Sonny Perdue’s mailer accusing Taylor of an alliance with radical homosexuals. That was a bit of fluff aimed at re-assuring the religious conservative base.
This is the kind of mailer that matters to Republicans this October — if the topic’s use in this and other races is any guide.
Here’s a bit of the language in the Perdue mailer: “For years the Democratic Barnes/Taylor administration ignored the growing masses of illegal immigrants flowing into Georgia. They allowed these illegal immigrants access to taxpayer-funded state services and benefits, causing Georgia to become a magnet for illegal immigration.”
The Perdue mailer also gigs Taylor for opposing the 2005 voter photo ID law. But the statute has been transformed. When first presented, it was a measure aimed at alleged excesses by African-American political machines. In the mailer, it’s become a tool “which stops illegal immigrants from voting.”
Never mind the numbers, polls spell base problems for Taylor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It would be one thing if bewildered Georgia Democrats, looking at Mark Taylor’s bleak standing in more than one poll, were challenging the statistical tone of this race for governor.
But they’re not. Not all of them, and not the ones that matter. There’s growing concern that — while nationally the party is surging — a lackluster performance by Taylor’s campaign has exposed Democrats in Georgia down the length of the ballot.
That women haven’t been energized has been documented. But African-American strategists are telling us that their networks — the strength behind Taylor’s primary victory — have become disengaged as well. A TV ad campaign by Taylor in September, emphasizing crime and punishment, didn’t go down well with black voters, they said.
Uniformly, they criticized Taylor’s ground game and the lack of African-Americans at the highest levels of the Democrat’s gubernatorial campaign.
We called Michael Thurmond, the state labor commissioner, who faces a Republican opponent in November, to see if he had heard the same things. He didn’t lie.
“I’m confused, slightly dismayed and concerned, but I’m still hopeful,� said Thurmond, who is African-American and who played the role of motivational speaker at last month’s state Democratic convention.
Friday’s launch of Taylor ads, detailing a Florida land purchase by Gov. Sonny Perdue, should tighten the race.
And the labor commissioner did say he picked up a spark of energy from his downstate contacts when the topic shifted to Attorney General Thurbert Baker, a black Democrat who’s enduring a harsh attack from Republican Perry McGuire.
It’s that race, Thurmond said, that might provide the fire lacking among black voters.
A taste of ‘08 in ‘06: McCain comes down to Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
John McCain, the U.S. senator and ’08 presidential contender, arrives today to help raise money for Casey Cagle, this year’s Republican candidate for lieutenant governor.
The two have never laid eyes on each other. And yet many Republicans in Georgia view this meeting as the end of a six-year-old saga, and will pay $1,000 per head to see it. The plot line, while hackneyed, is as irresistible as the Old Testament: What goeth around, cometh around.
When not pricking President Bush’s conscience on the issue of torture, McCain — as chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee — spent much of the last two years investigating the unsavory career of Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Which, of course, led to disclosures about Abramoff’s relationship with Ralph Reed, his friend and business associate.
This same Ralph Reed, as a Bush confidante and hero to evangelicals, helped deep-six McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign in the next-door South Carolina primary.
Cagle, in this summer’s primary, used the material uncovered by McCain’s committee to begin a post-Reed era in Georgia Republican politics.
The latest available poll, conducted in September by the GOP-oriented firm of Strategic Vision, shows McCain trailing former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani in Georgia, 33 to 19 percent.
Conventional wisdom says McCain, an ex-Vietnam POW, should do well here because of his military pedigree — but that his relationship with Christian conservatives is holding him back.
Conventional wisdom, if not wrong, is shallow. McCain’s problems in Georgia run deeper than that. Georgia business leaders will be listening to anything McCain’s got to say about Lockheed, the state’s largest defense contractor.
For the last decade and more, McCain has been a thorn in Lockheed’s side, first questioning the need for the C-130, the mainstay of the Marietta aircraft plant, then attempting to block funding for the F-22 Raptor, the Air Force’s most expensive weapon at $130 million each.
Buddy Darden is the former Democratic congressman from Marietta, who later served as a Lockheed consultant. He clued us in on the origin of the conflict.
Years ago, there was a bit of a budget game played with the C-130, a carry-anything cargo plane much used by national guard and reserve forces. The Pentagon wouldn’t put the planes in its annual defense budget, but relied on Congress to do so.
The “gentleman’s agreement� allowed the Department of Defense to highlight more of its budget priorities. Members of Congress reaped the benefits that came from winning the funding that kept thousands of workers employed — in Georgia and elsewhere.
McCain wouldn’t buy into the arrangement. In fact, he labeled it pork. So the fight began, Darden says.
What has raised the eyebrows of some members of Georgia’s congressional delegation is the fact that John Warner (R-Va.) is scheduled to step down as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
McCain is in line to replace him.
Sonny’s response, and his wife
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Click here to see the response that Sonny Perdue tossed onto the airwaves Friday afternoon, in immediate response to Mark Taylor’s slap at him over the Florida land deal.
Two things to note: First, the general nature of the Perdue ad tells us that it was in the can and ready to go long before Taylor’s ad struck. Secondly, we can’t remember when the wife of a candidate for governor played such a prominent role in her husband’s defense.
This is an interesting psychological move. It’s one thing to question a man’s ethics. Questioning a man’s ethics in front of his wife is a bit different. We’re not exactly sure how, but it is different.
You’ll note the response by Rick Dent, spokesman for Taylor. He made fun of the dog, not Mary Perdue.
More Foley fallout: At least they’re not saying he’s done a heckuva job
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Late this week, as Speaker Dennis Hastert headed home to Illinois voters, to answer questions about Mark Foley, pages and instant messaging, the flaks for Republican members of the U.S. House were called together in Washington for some coaching.
The instructions, according to one who was there, were to remain upbeat about the economy and national defense, and let the scandal play itself out.
For the most part, the message seems to be working. The state’s Republican delegation is hanging with the speaker — for now. It’s just that little note of temporality that jars.
“Any decision about anybody’s resigning is just premature,� said U.S. Rep. Tom Price of Roswell, whose Democratic opponent, Steve Sinton, has called on him to reject Hastert.
“We’d be getting ahead of ourselves to discuss who’s going to be in the leadership of the 110th Congress. We’ve got an election to deal with first,� said Brian Robinson, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Sharpsburg.
The House may stay Republican after November. It may not. But the enthusiasm missing from those statements suggests that Hastert might be gone no matter what.
More on the fall-out from Foley: The 12th District contest between U.S. Rep. John Barrow of Savannah, a Democrat, and Republican challenger Max Burns has dropped down eight spots in the latest National Journal tally of the most competitive U.S. House races in the country, from 24th to 32nd.
There’s only one Democratic incumbent — Leonard Boswell of Iowa — left on the list of the publication’s top 30 races on the country.
That’s because races involving Republican incumbents have moved up the list.
Taylor takes us to Disneyworld
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Taylor, the Democratic candidate for governor, finally gets on the TV screen with a big swipe at Republican incumbent Sonny Perdue. It’s all about the Florida land deal. See it here.
Meanwhile, an Insider Advantage poll has Perdue increasing his lead, 54 percent to Taylor’s 30 percent, with 8 percent for Libertarian Garrett Michael Hayes. Matt Towery’s outfit is subscription-based. If you’ve paid him, you can read the rest here.
The guv is against harassment of elite young men. Five years ago.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Boys and girls, it’s time to slip on those Freudian thinking caps we passed out last week.
Gov. Sonny Perdue has put out a hard-hitting mailer that accuses his Democratic rival, Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, of shutting down a bill to prohibit Boy Scouts from being ousted from meeting in government buildings because the organization won’t permit gay troop leaders.
“When the Boy Scouts were being harassed by the radical homosexual lobby” is how this howl from the Republican incumbent begins.
Let us posit some points:
A) Perdue has campaign money coming out of his ears. He can attack when he wants, where he wants, how he wants, and as quickly as he wants. In Navy parlance, he has the weather gauge. The terms of battle are his choice, and his alone.
B) Of all Taylor’s alleged short-comings, Perdue selected for his first blow a 5-year-old bill that the governor says would have protected an elite group of young, male adolescents — who are doing nothing but the nation’s work — from predatory homosexuals.
So here’s the question: Is Perdue really attacking Taylor? Or is he putting air between himself and that crew up in Washington — we can’t immediately recall their names or their party affiliation — who are now being criticized for their lax attitude toward a predatory homosexual and an elite group of young, male adolescents?
Remembering Johnny Apple
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Over the years we spent some time around Johnny Apple, the legendary New York Times political reporter who died Wednesday – usually in jampacked press rooms, reporting under deadline on a debate or an election with hundreds of other journalists. But it was the first time we ever saw him that came back to mind this week.
It was 1970 in Alabama, at the end of what Kennesaw prof Kerwin Swint, in a recent book, has called the dirtiest political campaign of all time: George Wallace’s rawboned Democratic primary victory over Albert Brewer, who had become governor upon the death in office of Wallace’s wife, Lurleen.
That summer one of the guys in the picture above was a college intern at the Montgomery Advertiser, and Apple, fresh back from his exploits as a reporter in Vietnam, was in the spring of his career as a political writer.
On the night of the primary he borrowed a desk in the Advertiser, toward which he bounded every few minutes when his editors called with new questions from New York. He was the busiest-looking guy the intern had ever seen, though some of that seemed for the benefit of the ladies from features who stuck around the newsroom on this momentous night.
But it was not the dashing figure Apple cut as he walked around the newsroom that struck us most that evening, memorable though he was. After dictating the final grafs of his story, late in the evening when it was clear Wallace had won solidly, he got up and strolled over to the big New York Times wire machine that sat beside the AP and UPI machines in a corner of the newsroom, and his story was already printing out on one of those big brown paper rollers.
In an age when this sentence can be viewed from most places on the globe a few seconds after one of us hits the “Save� button, that seems like such a small, slow thing. But that night, Johnny Apple was like a NASCAR driver behind the hottest engine on the track.
The dance card is filling up fast….
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Elections are like the perforation line on a paper towel. Now matter how fast you rip one section off the roll, you always get a piece of the next one.
No matter how quickly you rip through the ‘06 races, you’re bound to tear off a piece of ‘08.
Friday, Massachussetts Gov. Mitt Romney is down here, somewhere, to help raise money for Casey Cagle, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor. We know not whether he’ll meet with reporters. No doubt he’s busy, and the air is filled with certain questions national Republican leaders would rather not be asked just now.
On Monday, look for U.S. Sen. John McCain, another presidential wannabe, to show up at another fund-raiser for Cagle. Look for Ralph Reed not to be there. Look for Cagle not to endorse either of these guys for president.
On Tuesday, President Bush pops into Macon on behalf of Mac Collins, the GOP ex-congressman who’s trying to unseat U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall.
And on the Democratic side of the equation, we note that U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who is unopposed this season, will host former President Bill Clinton at his home on Oct. 20. The minimum $1,000-a-head luncheon is on behalf of other Democratic congressional candidates.
If memory serves, Clinton’s got something in Savannah that same day.
How to tell when a story has legs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As if we needed confirmation that the Foley scandal is sinking deep in the grassroots, John Eaves, the Democratic candidate for Fulton County Commission chair, announced Wednesday he’s faxed a letter to Speaker Dennis Hastert calling for his resignation, and challenged his Republican opponent, Lee Morris, to do the same.
“At this time in history, we cannot allow partisan politics to compromise our commitment to lead and protect our children,” Eaves said in a release.
Eaves also called for an “Intern Bill of Rights” for students working in Fulton County government, with a confidential hotline for county interns to report any inappropriate conduct toward them.
If you want something done right…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of the many, many things that worries Washington Republicans about this Mark Foley stuff is that it will so disturb Christian conservatives, that they won’t show up to vote on Nov. 7.
So comes Sonny Perdue to the rescue. On Sunday, he goes to the Baptist Vatican. He speaks to the congregation of the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., home to the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
Suggested sermon topic? “Never Mind How They Do It in D.C……”
Cagle tops Dirty 13
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Georgia chapter of the Sierra Club has released what this it’s calling this year a “Dirty Baker’s Dozen.� The annual list of 12 targeted legislators has been supplemented by the addition of Public Service Commissioner Stan Wise, who is charged with becoming “ever more openly� a tool of the utilities.
No. 1 on this year’s list is Casey Cagle, who is branded as an “anti-environmental leader.� Here’s the list.
STATE SENATORS
Casey Cagle
John Bulloch
Ralph Hudgins
Chip Pearson
Nancy Schaefer
Tommie Williams
STATE REPS
Steve Davis
Ron Forster
Harry Geisinger
John Lunsford
Carl Rogers
Richard Royal
PSC
Stan Wise
The Foley Fall-out: Washington Times wants Hastert gone
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s a link to the Washington Times editorial calling for the resignation of U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert over his handling of early evidence that U.S. Rep. Mark Foley was on the prowl.
Looks like we’ve got a pincher movement developing, from both the Republican right and the Democratic left.
Next, foot care for block walks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In time for a tough fall campaign, the American Occupational Therapy Association has put out a brochure titled “Grip and Grin: Surviving Handshaking on the Campaign Trail.�
Just ask Sonny Perdue or Mark Taylor if you think they’re kidding – those hearty greetings can pound like a jackhammer after a while. Here’s advice from the brochure:
ï?® Initiate the handshake for a firm lock on the other person’s hand;
ï?® Shake from the arm, not the wrist;
ï?® Break the handshake quickly and move on to the next one;
ï?® Place the left hand over the back of the other person’s hand to distribute pressure more evenly.
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They support Mark Taylor, but anonymously
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Moultrie Observer has a strange piece up on its web site. At a local Democratic function over the weekend, several state law enforcement officers stood up and pledged their support to Mark Taylor in the race for governor. But they wouldn’t give their names to the newspaper, “saying they were afraid Gov. Sonny Perdue would fire them.”
Read the entire article here.
The Mark Foley effect in Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If there were two men who silently — or otherwise — cursed the name of Mark Foley this weekend, they were Mac Collins and Max Burns, the two Republicans trying to unseat U.S. Reps. John Barrow of Athens and Jim Marshall of Macon.
National Republicans, through their own spending and through 527s, have sent hundreds of thousands of dollars South on behalf of Collins and Burns. Georgia’s 8th and 12th congressional districts have been viewed as rare jewels — vulnerable Democratic districts that might help offset the predicted anti-GOP sunami in November.
The key GOP argument used down here? The nation must be saved from the Democratic rule of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Foley, a Florida Republican, abruptly quit Congress on Friday after reports surfaced that he’d sent sexually charged electronic messages to boys working as pages. But within hours, the story shifted to what members of the Republican House leadership knew of Foley’s predelictions, and whether they ignored several years of warnings.
It makes it much harder to portray Pelosi as a threat when you’ve got someone like Foley impeaching your own leadership qualities.
3:30 p.m. addendum: Just got off the phone with a Democratic operative, having posed the question of whether we’re likely to see TV ads on the Foley scandal.
Right now, he said, the story was moving too quick to draw a bead on — but if it were to become a fully flowering, three-week media obsession, then there would be no need.
While we were chatting, someone e-mailed us a TPM Cafe link detailing what Republicans have received money from Foley’s political action committee, the Florida Republican Leadership PAC.
Recipients in 2004 include Johnny Isakson, then seeking a U.S. Senate seat, and Burns — who was then an incumbent member of the House, soon to be defeated by Barrow. Both received $1,000.
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